Tom Holland

Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West (2006)

The title of this book would lead a reader (this reader, anyway) to believe the focus to be the Achaemenid Empire and it's leading men, Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes, leading up to and through the clash between Persia and Greece. That assertion is an error of scope, as Holland looks not only at the r...

Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic (2005)

”Rather than gesture his men onward, Gaius Julius Caesar instead gazed into the turbid waters of the Rubicon, and said nothing. And his mind moved upon silence.The Romans had a word for such a moment Discrimen, they called it--an instant of perilous and excruciating tension, when the achievements...

Slave of My Thirst (aka Supping With Panthers) (1998)

Slave of My Thirst is an engaging trip through a number of narrative styles, from an hilariously oafish British colonial officer, to Bram Stoker's journal, to the diary of the Sherlock Holmes-like hero, Jack Eliot, and beyond. Each voice is distinctive, advancing the plot from its own point of vi...

The Poison in the Blood (2006)